Game mechanics have some similarites to the Honor Harrington universe of David Weber. The main difference being the type of faster than light drive. As noted in another review the combat charts are missing, but can be obtained from Far Future Enterprises by contacting them. I received a copy of the combat charts via email the same day I contacted them. The ability to design your own ships is a good feature. The combat mechanics do require several die rolls to resolve hits. 1. roll to hit, 2. roll to penetrate/reduce screens, 3. roll for hit location, 4. for non-surface hits roll to penetrate armor.

Rats! Accidentally deleted my original review, which went back to a week or three after publication. Let's just say that T5 does Traveller proud and it's once again what it was best: a toolbox filled with tools to create MY favorite sf rolegame.

I still bet Marc wishes he had the support group he had in 1977. It's hard to believe almost all of this came from one mind.

A very interesting read. The discussion covers many works from those that pre-date Traveller, and were influential in it's conception as a SF RGP, though various works of fan fiction. It ends up discussing the most recent works.

I really enjoyed this ebook. There are a lot of works discussed that I did not know about. It was very informative. Although the writer covered a lot, I feel that there are a lot of other SF works out there that, although not Traveller specific, is still of benifit to anyone designing a scenario. The subject is however very large and it is not possible to cover everything.

Traveller is a game set in a universe that looks somewhat Star-Warsy, if you aren't aware of or haven't read the decades of science fiction that came before 1977, on which the game is actually based. There is no one source; the game has many fathers, from Jefferson P. Swycaffer to Gordon Dickson to H. Beam Piper. Heretofore there hasn't been a compendium of sources, or discussion of influences, or reviews of how these books and authors came to be part of the Traveller background. That's where Shannon Appelcline and "The Science Fiction in Traveller" comes in.

The title refers not so much to the technologies and SFnal elements that go into Traveller than the way these technologies shaped the galactic societies in which they are placed, and how those elements appear in Traveller. For instance, Dickson's "The Genetic General" (known better today as "Dorsai!") does not much resemble Traveller in terms of tech. But it does have a Mercenary's Code, a feature that could be useful for Game Masters looking to provide more detail and substance to their own Traveller merc campaign. H. Beam Piper's "Space Viking" doesn't seem very Traveller, with its half-primitive space raiders devastating planets for the tech and raw materials to sustain their own civilization... but the home worlds of the Space Vikings have the same names as the Sword Worlds in Traveller, and the use of hyperdrive jump starships and their effect on commerce and warfare is very close to what you find in Traveller. Here too a GM can find inspiration for a campaign, raiding worlds for supplies or defending against them. In each case you find a little more of the Traveller universe and a good deal more in terms of usable background, story organization, campaign goals and structure to enhance your Traveler campaign.

My own long-time Traveller GM made much use of Keith Laumer's books on Retief, the diplomat to the stars, which greatly informed his campaigns with political and diplomatic subtlety -- even as we poor schlubs were using air/rafts to break into secret prisons for hostages in an enemy capital, hoping to get away clean. It's this sort of backgrounding that makes a campaign feel more real, and greatly enhances the player's enjoyment of the setting as well as the adventure. Bigger Things Are Moving In the Shadows, and if you are lucky, you might get to find out how to profit for them.

If that's the sort of thing you're looking to do for your players, I heartily recommend "The Science Fiction In Traveller" as a way to discover the roots of the game and the stories that can inspire world-spanning adventures for your players. Do look into it; you'll be very glad you did.

A great view of the Traveller Universe from the perspective it's books and other novels in an effort to capitalize on these to conceptualize the universe.

Good job.

This could go "on and on" with comparisons to other novels/series. I look forward to a 2nd novel. I would've liked to have seen Ender's Game, Foundation, and numerous other books mentioned. For that matter sci-fi franchises like Firefly, Farscape, Star Wars, and StarGate have all see a bit of Traveller in them.

Game guides have their uses as they can help establish what serious collectors of gaming products need to get to fill out their collections.

I got the bundled package during the Christmas period when it was free. As a minor point, this is really a form of advertising and should always be free as it is essentially helping the vendor to sell more products.

Like others have already mentioned - most fun character creation system ever. I have played both editions and First Edition is the only way to go. Second edition replaces many of the % rolls with d10 and the game lost detail and the "right feel". Trust me on this. The rating - well, I would give it 5 stars easily because of the value of the bundled deal. Its great to get all the books at once so heavily discounted. I wish other "big" publishers would do this. However, the scanning is some of the worst I've encountered on this website. And I've purchased alot of PDFs. Not only do the scans bleed through from the backside, the text clarity and sharpness is also poor. I recommend a complete rescan of this series ASAP and post the updates so we can re-download. thanks guys

Truth be told, I purchased this to get the 134-page Traveller Timeline which pulls together all significant events from the time of the ancients to the end of the Fifth Frontier War/Golden Age (1115). This is a good treatment of the timeline because Classic Traveller focuses on the "Golden Age" setting. McKinney pulls together data from a wide variety of sources (from the original Library Data to Dragon Magazine and finally to supplements from publishers like SJ Games).

The timeline is a fascinating resource and is well worth the price. All events are listed by date (day-XXXX Imperial Year), description and source in a kind of modified MLA format (Source Publication, Publisher, Date, Page.)

This collection has all the great Classic Traveller materials together in one place. Unfortunately, it does not have a Guide to the Judges Guild and GameLords Traveller Resources.

If you enjoy space combat and want to approach it as a 'wargame', this set of rules and other resources will enable you to do so within the context of your 2300 AD game, moving seamlessly from character-level role-playing to ship-to-ship combat. For those who like their games realistic, this ruleset has been designed to model as closely as possible what would be likely to happen in a space combat - the only real breach of known physical laws is the existence of 'stutterwarp' as a propulsion system.

As a box set, several books are included (they come as a single large PDF file if you purchase a download copy). The first one, Star Cruiser Rule Book, contains the actual combat system - a good straightforward one - along with a collection of scenarios to fight out (complete with lists of appropriate ships to use) and a lot of ships to use in your battles. There's no scope for character involvement, even if you do decide that the party is aboard one of the participating ships - this is pure 'wargame'.

Next is the Naval Architect's Manual. This is designed to enable quite detailed ship design, and takes you through the process step-by-step from the original concept through to all the details of power plant, armament, crew size and such like that you'll need to know - especially if you want to test your new design in battle using the rules provided.

Finally, there's a whole bunch of Ship Status Sheets covering every vessel mentioned as well as a few blanks for you to add your own designs. There are also ship counters and a large map on which to fight out your battles. (If using the PDF version and printing, you might want to make your own map as this one is basically black - it is space, after all - and will eat up your black ink!)

Overall, if you want to have a stand-alone space combat boardgame, this is quite a neat and straightforward one. If you want a space combat game that links in to the 2300 AD galaxy, perhaps to resolve the outcomes of disputes in the background of your role-playing (for example, Kafer ships are included so if the Kafer invasion is part of your campaign, you might have a space battle or two being fought out that the party will hear about...), this one makes good use of the background set up for the game. The one place it falls down is if you want to have the party involved in space actions. This is ship-on-ship combat, pure and simple. And fun!